Archive for December 21st, 2006
December 21st, 2006 | 
Author: Been ultra busy of late not had much time to think. The weather is still very mild, it broke freezing today. They say the North Pole is going to totally melt by 2040, I can believe it.
As part of my job, I am obliged to give a final mark to all of my students. Anything over 60 is considered a pass, however all of their marks over all of their subjects are averaged to come up with a final score. If they fail they ‘cannot’ continue to the next year and will be required to take a ‘make-up’ exam to compensate for this. Actually, I refuse to fail any of my students. The lowest mark I give is 61. The reason for this is that if I do fail them, they will simply take the make-up exam and pass anyway. The make-up usually consists only of giving the the dean of the school a brown envelope in exchange for a pass.
Perhaps one of the most important things for the students are the scholarships that are available. From what I understand, all public universities have a government scholarship available to the students just for passing all of their subjects. It’s something tiny like 60yuan a semester, but better than a poke in the eye. The universites also offer a scholarship based on the scores, though they may differ depending on the institution. where I am now, if a student scores over 90 in all areas they will get something like 1000yuan for the year.
At a previous university I gave all the students written and oral exams as well as taking into account their general attendance. I gave the department the information at the end of the semester, satisifed I had done everything as equitably as possible. Come the next semester I had perhaps 20 students complaining about their marks; they either had a very low mark or not one at all!
So I went back to the dept, got the copies of the mark sheets from the office only to find that they had been changed. Not only just edited, but these were not the sheets I had handed in previously! I scanned down to the bottom to see that my name had been forged, somone had written DAVID in large child-like handwriting as if to indicate my signature!
Anyway these poor students eventually got a mark and everything was ok. But I was annoyed as it questioned my competance and made me look like an fool. The students seemed relativly unperturbed by this, suggesting to me that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to them. Looking back I’m sure it wasn’t!
The Chinese academic institutions aren’t great at accountability, so when you get into a problem it’s often difficult (if not impossible) to get a straight answer from anyone. Nobody wants to know. It’s not their problem. I’ve heard tales of students not being able to graduate just because their exam scripts were ‘lost’ by the university. Or the student that told me her grade was 100% wrong – she had been given the wrong mark by her teacher and was unable to change it as the university was unwilling (or more likely unable) to get the original script.
No re-take. No second chance.
Here extreme strict liability applies, the burden falls on the student.
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